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ICICI personal finance portal to close shop on merger

Anusha Subramanian & Janaki Krishnan

ICICI's personal finance portal-- ICICImoneymanager.com --will soon cease to exist following the proposed merger between ICICI and ICICI Bank. The portal's operations will be transferred to ICICIDirect.com, the financial institution's stock trading portal.

Madhabi Puri Buch, chief executive officer of ICICI Home Finance and head of ICICI Direct said, "At the time of announcing the merger, the institution had two alternatives-- either to merge it with ICICIbank.com or with ICICIDirect.com.

However, considering the synergies in the operations and content of the two portals, it was decided that the investment and tax planning functions of moneymanager.com would be merged with ICICIDirect.com."

Some employees of moneymanager.com will be redeployed in the trading portal and the others in ICICI Home Finance. The marketing, sales and technical staff have already been absorbed into the housing finance firm.

One advantage of the merger is that the members of ICICIDirect.com would be able to avail of a broader spectrum of services comprising mutual funds and equity shares.

Buch said the move is part of a rationalisation drive of various subsidiaries of ICICI.

The rationalisation will see three of ICICI's subsidiaries - ICICI Web Trade, ICICI Capital Services and ICICI Personal Finance - being merged into a single entity. This will reduce the number of subsidiaries under its fold from 31 to 25, post-merger.

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